As Henry Hill exclaims at the beginning of Goodfellas,
"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a book nerd."
Well, no, he didn't say that, but if he had we would all have smiled
knowing smiles of recognition (although the movie might have sucked, it
has to be said). This book is written in a similar spirit of affection,
nostalgia, populism, exhilaration, woe, and self-deprecating irony as
Scorsese's classic film. Without the paranoid cocaine binges.
But
if it isn't a gangster film, what the hell is it? Well, it's a tribute
to the world of writing. It's funny in the sense it takes its humour
seriously. There's a good deal of snark involved but it's at the gentle
end of the continuum and is very much rooted in a lifelong love of
books, of both reading and writing them.
In
its celebration of the growing democratic movement within the publishing
industry, it is deeply anti-elitist—yet it doesn't shy away from the
highbrow (well, okay, the middlebrow). Within its pages, the mechanics
of writing and editing are treated as seriously as the melodies, rhythms
and cadence of the greatest prose. It pokes fun at the object of its
affection and yet it can't hide the simple fact it's deliriously,
hopelessly in love.
In other words, it's a walking contradiction. Except it doesn't walk. I mean, come on: it's a book, people.
Anyway, where else can you find, all together within one relatively short book, the following?
Sinking
ships, musings on soccer, tributes to literary greats and
not-so-greats, punk rock, literary mashups, wordplay, shin-kicking
contests, seahorse roe, Jersey Shore, urban legends, lists (oh, so many
lists), beginnings and endings, poetry, social media, Joe Konrath, Dan
Mader, Atticus Finch, Holden Caulfield, Yngwie Malmsteen, horror, movie
magic, drunk sportswriters, Valley Girls, tricks, sonnets, meanness,
strangeness, kindness, sorrow, rabid baboon esophagi, sparkly vampires,
soccer moms, R. Kelly, Stephen King, fantasy, Lester Bangs, light
spankings, Smashwords, pitfalls and cautionary tales, handicapped badger
spleens, Canada, Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Hannibal Lecter, Hunter S.
Thompson, Shakespeare, zombies and Wu Tang Clan. Although, sadly, no
nudity.
In a sense, it's a mashup of Bill
Bryson and the uneasy babblings of a charismatic yet profoundly
disturbed street person. And you will want to either protect it and find
it a home or set fire to it in a moment of anguished pity.